Thank you, Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses for appearing before the committee today. It's not unprecedented actually, what we've seen, what Russia is doing in multiple attempts against multiple NATO members.
It's funny because from the Baltics all the way to interior Europe to Romania and Poland, it seems like a type of bullying tactic in one aspect of it. Obviously, it's not unplanned. It is well planned. Maybe it's one of those campaigns to try to confuse us and to keep us busy wondering, around the 30-plus members of NATO, what we do with Russia and with Putin and his power? Unfortunately, it's an empire that survives on wars and conflicts. It's becoming our problem in the western world, in NATO and obviously across the board.
Such an attempt could trigger article 5 if the Russians were too stupid and hit a target in any of these countries. We would then be facing article 5. From your knowledge, and I'm going to ask you as an expert, within the NATO constitution and what constitutes NATO members to act upon such a threat, what could trigger article 5 in this case?
We know article 4 is applied because the members that were attacked, or subject to an attack, have to consult the rest of the member allies. What could trigger article 5? Shouldn't article 5 not at least be an option in front of Russia? Unfortunately, such a thing could also trigger a third world war of some kind. This is a very tricky situation. In terms of NATO, how do you see this playing out between article 4 and article 5?